All major business establishments have a receptionist/operator who responds to incoming telephone calls to the establishment's central telephone exchange (CENTREX) or, in the case of a private branch exchange (PBX), answers incoming calls to the PBX main number. Telephone answering protocol requires that the operator respond to each incoming call with some type of salutation, i.e. a greeting identifying the answering party. Generally the greeting is a common two to three second long phrase, such as "Good morning, ABC Manufacturing Company". In some instances, such as law partnership offices the greeting may be longer, such as "Good morning, Smith, Jones, Brown and Green . . . ".
This common greeting may be repeated four hundred to a thousand times or more during the operator's workshift. As such it may be difficult to maintain voice freshness throughout the workshift, especially toward the end of the shift when fatigue may result in a less than pleasant greeting. An obvious solution would be to provide a recorded announcement which could be used for each incoming call.
Mechanical recordings, however, present a number of different operating problems. First, the mechanical tape recording device must be repeatedly rewound/played for each call. Secondly, the sound fidelity of the mechanical recording device does not always sound natural. If the recording is different from the operator's actual voice, there is a likelihood that the caller will be able to discriminate between the recorded message and the live operator's voice, thereby generating confusion. Ideally, the recorded greeting will be indistinguishable to the calling party.